Penn doctor develops smartphone app to help in treating stroke

About Jessica McDonald

Jessica is a health reporter covering daily stories for WHYY's Health & Science desk. Previously a hands-on practitioner of biomedical research, Jessica recently graduated with a Ph.D. in immunology from Yale University. She got hooked on radio as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow with KUNC-FM in Northern Colorado, writing and producing radio stories about plasma sanitizers, chaos theory and rock climbing, and how to use metabolomics to improve the taste of beer. Jessica is also a graduate of Haverford College, where she majored in English and biology, and got her true (internet) radio start as a DJ. Some of her favorite things include coffee, cats, and cycling.

Thanks to one University of Pennsylvania neurologist, there's now an app to help doctors treat stroke patients. The app is one of the innovations debuting this week at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Center City.

Stroke physician Claude Nguyen is a self-described nerd. So when he was training at the University of Texas, he thought a smartphone app could help him monitor passing time and other details that are easy to lose track of -- but important for good stroke care.

"Every minute that goes by following a stroke, at least 2 million neurons die," he said. So acting quickly to administer a clot-busting drug called tPA is vital.

"[The app] helps me just to have an at-a-glance kind of dashboard in terms of how much time I have left to give tPA safely," Nguyen added.

Nguyen wrote the app's code to include various stopwatches. And he designed it so the patient's information can be compared with the requirements for clinical trials, letting him know if they're eligible for those trials.

Clinical trials are especially important for stroke because tPA is currently the only FDA-approved drug to treat stroke, Nguyen said.

Your browser is out-of-date!

Some features of this website (and others) may not work correctly with Internet Explorer 8 and below. Click below and we'll show you your upgrade options (they're free). -your friends at NewsWorks. Update my browser now